A step-by-step guide to managing your tasks with AI
If you use Things 3 as your task manager and Claude as your AI assistant, you can now connect the two directly — letting Claude read your tasks, create new ones, and help you manage projects using plain language. This is made possible through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that lets Claude talk to local apps and services on your Mac.
Here’s exactly how to get it set up, including the one gotcha that’ll likely trip you up (it got me).
What You Need
- Things 3 for Mac (the app itself)
- Claude Desktop app (not claude.ai in your browser — the desktop app is required for local MCP servers)
- uv, a Python package manager (we’ll install this)
- Terminal access (basic comfort with copy/paste commands)
Step 1 — Enable Things URLs
The MCP server communicates with Things 3 via its URL scheme, so you need to turn that on first.
In Things 3, go to Settings → General and check Enable Things URLs.
Step 2 — Install uv
uv is a fast Python package manager that makes it easy to run the Things MCP server without a complex setup. Open Terminal and run:
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | shAfter it finishes, close Terminal and reopen it. Then verify it installed correctly:
which uvxYou should see a path like /Users/yourname/.local/bin/uvx. Copy that path — you’ll need it in the next step.
Step 3 — Configure Claude Desktop
Claude Desktop uses a JSON config file to know which MCP servers to load. Open this file in any text editor:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Add the following inside the file (or merge it with any existing content you have):
{
"mcpServers": {
"things": {
"command": "/Users/yourname/.local/bin/uvx",
"args": ["things-mcp"]
}
}
}Important: Replace /Users/yourname/.local/bin/uvx with the actual path you got from the which uvx command. Using just “uvx” won’t work — Claude Desktop needs the full path.
Step 4 — Restart Claude Desktop
Fully quit Claude Desktop with Cmd+Q (don’t just close the window), then reopen it. When it loads, you should see a small MCP indicator in the bottom-right corner of the chat input area. Click it to confirm the Things server is connected.
The Gotcha That Will Trip You Up
The most common reason this fails: Claude Desktop can’t find uvx even after you’ve installed it. This is a PATH issue — Claude Desktop launches in a different environment than your Terminal session.
The fix is simple: use the full absolute path to uvx in your config instead of just the command name. That’s why Step 2 has you run which uvx and copy the result.
If you see “Could not connect to MCP server Things” in Claude Desktop, this is almost certainly the culprit. Update the command in your config to the full path, restart Claude Desktop, and it should connect.
What You Can Do Once It’s Connected
Once the MCP server is running, you can talk to Claude naturally about your tasks:
- “What’s on my Today list?”
- “Create a task to follow up with the client by Friday”
- “What projects do I have in my Work area?”
- “Which tasks in my Anytime list are more than two weeks old?”
- “Help me plan out a new project with subtasks”
Claude has full access to Inbox, Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday, and your custom projects and areas.
Pro Tip
Create a Claude Project with custom instructions describing how you use Things, like your areas, naming conventions, how you use tags, etc. This gives Claude context so it creates tasks that fit naturally into your existing system rather than generic ones.
Worth the 10 Minutes
The setup takes about 10 minutes once you know the steps. The result is that your task manager and your AI assistant can finally work together. No copy-pasting, no switching apps, just asking Claude what you need. Pretty awesome for my workflows.
